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Dessert

Whobtleberry Fried-cakes

A fried cake made with flour, eggs, sugar, milk, and whortleberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whobtleberry Fried-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the baking powder and salt with the flour.

  2. Pick over the whortleberries carefully.

  3. Beat the eggs for five minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Stir the sugar and milk into the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the berries and flour, mixing lightly and quickly to form a stiff batter.

  3. If needed, add more flour.

Fry

  1. Fry tablespoonfuls of the batter in hot fat until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as the cakes set.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying so the cakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set.
Whortleberries
Add tart fruit flavour and moisture throughout the cakes.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing the berries and flour. Mixing lightly and quickly keeps the batter tender. Overworking develops gluten in the flour, which makes the fried cakes tough and dense.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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